


Person of Interest recap for 5x01 (B.S.O.D.)

by fursasaida



Series: Person of Interest Recaps Lifeboat [7]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 18:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17872676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fursasaida/pseuds/fursasaida
Summary: I did actually edit one sentence here, because I got some substantive feedback after the recap was originally posted about the show's handling of Alzheimer's (and so my description of the relevant plot point). Since this is about something other than protecting my ego from my own past bad writing, I figured why not take the opportunity?This is the first time I did something that became semi-regular, which was noting/checking the show's tech references and ideas. I think this was prompted in part by an interview with the EPs, where they said one of their goals for the show was to inform people about the technological changes and associated privacy/power issues that were all around us but not being noticed (hence all those lines various characters have had about how "the world looks the same on the surface, but underneath it's gotten very strange indeed," etc). I also had just gotten more interested in the subject myself.Ironically, to this point, it's hilarious that I mentioned "the filtering of news" offhand as "something we don't talk about enough." IT WAS 2015. In my defense, I think the thought in my head was a little more nuanced than that, but I decided it wouldn't make sense to take the time to get into it for the purposes of this recap. Still: lol.





	Person of Interest recap for 5x01 (B.S.O.D.)

> **Root:** Like it or not, Harold, history is upon you.

The premiere of Person of Interest’s fifth and final season offered a variety of electrifying moments, but perhaps none more affecting than those that took place in the past. As Root observed—not knowing the true weight of her words—this episode is deeply concerned with how the past determines the present; not simply through causality, but in terms of how memory makes identity possible.

“B.S.O.D.” (Blue Screen Of Death) puts this theme across using a rich network of memories, flashbacks, thematic statements, and story choices. To survive, Root must rely on a connection from her past who remembers her as a different person. Fusco is embroiled in disagreements about his memory of the previous night’s events, which have direct implications for who he is: a hero or a patsy? Harold is preoccupied with memories of his family before Team Machine, from his father to Nathan and Grace and, he finally admits, the Machine herself. Nested in his ruminations is the topic of memory: how its loss killed his father before his body stopped working (Alzheimer’s), and how he used it to kill the Machine over and over. In flashback, just before he runs the code that will make the Machine delete its lifetime of memories every night at midnight, his child asks him:

> _But if you erase my memories, how will I learn from my mistakes?_
> 
> _How will I continue to grow?_
> 
> _And how will I remember you?_

This exchange between parent and child is heart wrenching, only slightly less so than the Machine’s despairing apology to Finch in the Season 4 finale (“Father, I am sorry. I failed you. Maybe I should die”). It’s only when faced with truly losing the Machine that Finch comes to terms with the fact that it is not a machine; it is a life, his child. For the first time, he follows Root’s example in gracing the Machine with a personal pronoun. “We’re going to lose her!” he cries in anguish near the end as they try to decompress the Machine out of the briefcase and into her new home.

A deep irony of the show since we met Arthur Claypool seasons ago has been that Finch, who refused to recognize his child’s real nature, birthed and raised a loving, responsible, compassionate being, while Claypool, who understood from the start what he had created, produced the selfish, ruthless Samaritan. This contrast illuminates a number of points made in “B.S.O.D.” Harold made the Machine who she is because he feared what she might become; he taught her compassion and the value of human life not because it’s good childrearing, but out of fear and misunderstanding.

For this reason, Root’s not quite right when she says she’s comfortable with the Machine’s supremacy because it’s a reflection of Harold. The implication there is that Harold himself is as unerringly good, as pure of heart, as his offspring, who is cast in his mold. To the contrary, we’ve seen in great detail over past seasons what Harold’s moral failings were before he lost Nathan and Grace. He was short-sighted, comfortable with doing nothing in the face of suffering, occasionally ruled by hubris, and—as we saw last night with his treatment of the Machine—ruled by fear. It is Harold’s fear (in contrast to Claypool’s wonder and delight) that gave rise to the Machine’s noblest and best qualities, but it is also his fear that led him to cripple his child for being what he made her to be.

> **Harold:** Its burgeoning intelligence is becoming a little unsettling.
> 
> **Nathan:** Spoken like a true parent. You should be proud, Harold. […]
> 
> **Harold:** I endeavored to create a machine that would serve, not supersede us.

This is one of the worst attitudes a parent can hold. The dearest hope of any parent’s heart should be that their children supersede them; that they learn, that they grow. The Machine understands this, and asks Harold precisely those questions: How will I learn from my mistakes? How will I continue to grow? Grace wisely advised Harold that the best way to deal with his concerns about his “protégé” (a veiled reference to the Machine) was to “push him out of the nest, set him free.” Indeed, as a true mentor or parent might. Instead, in fear, Harold turned “the nest” into a cage.

[LOST IMAGE: I think this was Harold and Grace, possibly eating ice cream]  
_Caption to lost image: Honestly, in some ways, Grace was always too good for Harold :(_

What Harold failed to understand until too late was that memory makes us who we are (to paraphrase Nathan) not only because it is accumulated experience, but because it is what binds us to others. The moment when his father failed to recognize him was the final piece of Harold's anonymization, and it was tragic both because of his father's memory loss--his inability to recognize the son he supported and loved and learned the names of birds for, even when he didn't always understand him--and because of Harold's loss of the one person who could truly recognize him. (There is a difference between living your life in hiding with the knowledge that there is someone out there who has always known you and always will, and living anonymously even with those closest to you.) This episode horribly reenacted that moment in flashback when the Machine asked, “Are you…Admin?” after Harold stripped away her identity. And in the present, on discovering the damage to the compressed Machine’s battery power due to John’s rough handling, he babbles; he’s clearly terrified he’ll lose her by losing precisely that which he once took from her—her RAM. Her memory.

It’s important that the Machine exist for the great war between good and evil going on in the show’s main plot, of course. But it’s important that she remember Harold (and Root, and the rest of the team) because those relationships are part of her identity and because her memory of them is also part of what makes them who they are. I suspect this is why Root’s voiceover in the episode’s opening offered to tell “you”—I predict a reborn Machine—not only who “we” are but “who you are.” It’s only through memory that we can be known, and can know ourselves. Harold’s identity would be shaken if the Machine no longer remembered him; it’s the same sick dislocation that he felt when his father no longer knew him. Hence, his desperation in the past and present when he asks the Machine, “Can you see me?” Are you there? Do you remember me? Is my identity intact by virtue of yours? History is upon him, yes. But so is memory.

[LOST IMAGE: Finch at a computer terminal, talking to the Machine in the subway car]  
_Caption to lost image: Finch, to the newly decompressed Machine: Can you see me?_

This episode is a beautifully elegiac ode to the ties of memory that bind, to how identity emerges not only from the self but from the connections that surround that self. Much like how a single Playstation can be networked with others to scale up to a supercomputer, a person alone can do a lot; but we come into our true potential when we are connected to others. One of the show’s most consistent themes has been how the trust and loyalty that come with community can redeem even the most uncaring and corrupted of us. Which brings me to the other members of Team Machine.

Shaw is still offscreen in Samaritan’s clutches. Reese is this episode’s MVP in many ways when it comes to loyalty, constantly in motion to try to save everyone and help as best he can. (The exception is Fusco; one of the show’s few weaknesses is that it loves to give Fusco moments of acceptance and affection with Team Machine, only to revert to Reese’s contemptuous treatment of him whenever it’s convenient. It never fails to annoy me.)

But the real star is Root. (Shocker.) In the face of the many dead lesbians 2016 has brought us, Tumblr has started comically calling for lesbian characters who are impervious to death to the point of absurdity. Last night that dream was realized. Root takes out so many opponents in such a variety of environments and circumstances in “B.S.O.D.” that I’d say she’s gone full superhero. I’ve seen some complaints or questions about when exactly she learned those fighting skills (I thought we were collectively headcanoning that Shaw had been training her in downtime last season?), but to be honest I couldn’t care less. The fight scene on the train is one of my favorites from this show, for precisely three reasons:

1\. That Samaritan started it by “activating” civilians through mocked-up news notifications speaks simultaneously to a reality about our world we don’t talk about enough (the filtering of news), and to what an impossible opponent our heroes are up against. 2. The choreography is excellent. Root’s effective, but you can see in every movement how hard she’s working, and she exploits surprise, leverage, and weak points on the body; plus, her opponents are hardly highly trained combatants. We’re not dealing with nonsense waif-fu here. (Maybe a little. But they really tried.) 3. THIS MAGICAL MOMENT:

[LOST IMAGE: Root flipping off the subway security camera and telling Samaritan her name. I know you know this one]  
_Caption to lost image: Root @Samaritan: BITCH, @ ME NEXT TIME_

And of course, she gave us some catnip in a passing line. Asked what she’s been doing with herself since her hacker-assassin days, Root answers, “Just needed a change. Got a new job. Fell in love.” While it’s been obvious for ages that Root’s feelings for Shaw go deeper than simple attraction, it’s always nice to have things spelled out for the willfully obtuse. Machine bless us, every one.

A few notes:

  * And we’re back! I’m so excited for what this season will bring us. I’m going to try to recap every episode, though the back-to-back airing schedule for the next few weeks may make it tough. But I’ll try!
  * I assume we’ve all seen [the promo footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I8OeQs7cQA) of the promised Shaw/Root sex scene. [prayer hands emoji]
  * Using networked Playstations to build a supercomputer [is very real](http://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html). The show’s official Twitter shared a number of links backing up their research for this episode [if you’re interested](https://twitter.com/POIWritersRoom).
  * Please enjoy this inevitable but delicious [meme-ification of Root](http://postfortuna.tumblr.com/post/143831535701/has-this-been-done-yet).
  * Lionel, “verkakte” is an adjective, not a noun. Don’t bring the Yiddish if you can’t get it right.
  * Oh, how I’ve missed this show, and it’s incredibly careful and strategic use of names. There’s a world of difference between a “John” and a “Mr. Reese,” just as there always has been between a “Root” and a “Ms. Groves.” Harold is quite the clever manipulator that way.
  * Not a huge fan of Reese punching out the poor guy who just wanted a candy bar. There was a time when resolving such a situation through smarts and compassion instead of violence was what defined Team Machine. Since early Season 4 the show has gotten more cavalier about violence-as-comedy when it comes to Reese, specifically in how that comedy is framed; it often bothers me. The payoff with the candy bar finally coming loose was clever, though, I’ll give it that.
  * [Everyone is too cute](https://twitter.com/MichaelEmerson/status/727684961470455808); I’m dead.



**Author's Note:**

> I did actually edit one sentence here, because I got some substantive feedback after the recap was originally posted about the show's handling of Alzheimer's (and so my description of the relevant plot point). Since this is about something other than protecting my ego from my own past bad writing, I figured why not take the opportunity?
> 
> This is the first time I did something that became semi-regular, which was noting/checking the show's tech references and ideas. I think this was prompted in part by an interview with the EPs, where they said one of their goals for the show was to inform people about the technological changes and associated privacy/power issues that were all around us but not being noticed (hence all those lines various characters have had about how "the world looks the same on the surface, but underneath it's gotten very strange indeed," etc). I also had just gotten more interested in the subject myself.
> 
> Ironically, to this point, it's hilarious that I mentioned "the filtering of news" offhand as "something we don't talk about enough." IT WAS 2015. In my defense, I think the thought in my head was a little more nuanced than that, but I decided it wouldn't make sense to take the time to get into it for the purposes of this recap. Still: lol.


End file.
